Prosecutors Bringing Charges Under Law Inspired by Megan Meier Suicide

Dec. 24, 2008— -- Prosecutors have begun bringing criminal charges under a new Missouri cyberbullying law passed in reaction to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl who was harassed on the Internet.

After the suicide of Megan Meier and subsequent prosecution of her adult neighbor Lori Drew, lawmakers in Missouri amended the state's harassment law to cover electronic bullying and stalking.

Drew, 49, was convicted last month of several federal misdemeanors for her role in what prosecutors called a cruel online hoax -- using the social networking site MySpace -- that allegedly led Meier to kill herself. Drew was prosecuted in Los Angeles, where MySpace's computer servers are located, after authorities in Missouri said no state laws had been broken.

No statewide statistics have been kept on cyberbullying prosecutions in Missouri, and it was not immediately clear how often the law had been invoked, but charges have been brought against several defendants since the law went into effect Aug. 28, among them a 21-year-old woman who allegedly sent taunting and harassing text messages to a 17-year-old girl.

Though the long-term impact of Drew's case is still unclear, some observers say the recent prosecutions are part of a larger fallout from the landmark case, which received international attention.

By Jan. 1, at least 19 states will have laws addressing cyberbullying, nine of them passed this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Federal lawmakers are also considering action, after the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act was introduced in Congress earlier this year.

"It changed the landscape" of cyberbullying prosecutions, said Parry Aftab, director of WiredSafety.org, which fights cyber-bullying.

"This is momentous in terms of bringing attention to cyberbullying," she said. "This is one of those things that happens once in the lifetime of an issue. This was the first time something like this was brought to a national level."

Under a novel legal theory, Drew, of O'Fallon, Mo., was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of unauthorized access to computers under a federal law typically used to combat computer hacking. Prosecutors said she, along with her daughter and an assistant, created a fake MySpace profile in the name of Josh Evans, a fictitious 16-year-old boy.